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Sunday, August 28, 2016

Chicago Bears welcome Olympic medalists to Soldier Field

Broncos vs. Bears | Post Game Highlights | NFL

CHICAGO -- The Chicago Bears invited four American Olympic medalists to Saturdays preseason game at Soldier Field, including bronze-medal trap shooter Corey Cogdell-Unrein, who is married to Bears defensive lineman Mitch Unrein.

Olympic Bronze medalist Corey Cogdell-Unrein, who is married to Chicago Bears defensive lineman Mitch Unrein, proudly displays her Rio medal at Solider Field.Jeff Dickerson/ESPN.com

Also in attendance were Chicago-area natives Kevin Cordes (Gold -- men"s swimming, Naperville, Ill.), Kelly Murphy (Bronze -- indoor volleyball, Wilmington, Ill.) and Kelsey Robinson (Bronze -- indoor volleyball, Elmhurst, Ill.).

Olympic medalists Kelsey Robinson, Kevin Cordes and Corey Cogdell-Unrein pose for photos prior to the Bears" preseason game on Saturday.Jeff Dickerson/ESPN.com

Mitch Unrein beamed with pride when recently discussing his wife"s medal-winning performance in Rio. Corey Cogdell-Unrein is a two-time Olympic medalist who also took home a bronze in women"s trap shooting at the 2008 Beijing games.

People are like, "How did you get her to marry you?" Unrein said with a grin. And I"m like, "You know, I"m a smooth talker maybe. I don"t know." I hit a home run when I got to marry her. She"s one in a million. There are not too many times you can say, "My wife is a three-time Olympian and has two medals." It"s so cool to watch her achieve her dreams. It"s so cool that we"re both kind of at the pinnacle of our sports. It really helps our relationship.

Source: http://www.espn.com/blog/chicago-bears/post/_/id/4703440/chicago-bears-welcome-olympic-medalists-to-soldier-field

Saturday, August 27, 2016

Plenty of new college football fans for 1st game of season (Aug 27, 2016)

Conference champions should NOT automatically make the College Football Playoff - "The Herd"

SYDNEY (AP) It was more than two hours before the start of Saturday"s U.S. college season opener between California and Hawaii, and Anthony Goodluck and his son were already milling outside Sydney"s Olympic stadium, soaking up the early atmosphere.

The rental company manager, dressed in a Cal Bears jersey, and son Jaiden, with a long ""Cal"" scarf wrapped around his neck, came 950 kilometers (590 miles) south from Brisbane for the big game.

The weather was cooperating, with sunny skies and light winds on a late winter day and high temperatures of around 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit). Despite nearly 75 millimeters (three inches) of rain in the past week, the stadium turf was firm

""I actually coach some gridiron in Brisbane, and I"d take college football over the NFL any day,"" said Goodluck. ""I"m a big Miami fan - go Hurricanes - but after that I love Cal State. We"re really looking forward to seeing our first game.""

It was the first time college football had been played in Sydney. The last American football of any kind was an NFL preseason game at the Olympic stadium that attracted 73,000 spectators in 1999.

Organizers said two weeks ago they hoped for a crowd in excess of 65,000, and Saturday"s attendance was close to that - 61,247 in the 83,500-seat stadium. The final score wasn"t close - Cal beat Hawaii 51-31.

Early arrivals Saturday had a chance to try their luck throwing an American football through a hole in a net in a radio station promotion. Foot-long hot dogs were big sellers at the outdoor booths, but in keeping with the multicultural nature of western Sydney where the stadium is located, Asian and middle Eastern goods also featured prominently on the menus.

Michelle Hubbard of Melbourne was an early arrival for another reason - her son, Ben Scruton, is a walk-on player for Hawaii and will travel back with the team when the Rainbow Warriors leave for Honolulu right after the game.

""I had to get him his visa,"" Hubbard said. ""And I have four tickets if anyone needs them. Ben bought them nearly a year ago for him and his mates. Now he"s in the stadium as an official member of the team.""

Scruton was offered a spot after Hawaii conducted a scouting camp in Melbourne earlier this year. He"s like many other Australian Rules players who have earned spots on college teams and in the NFL, mostly as punters.

Another set of parents were dressed in Cal uniforms - Greg and Cynthia Madden - who travelled from southern California to support their son, Cal defensive end DeVante Wilson.

""We can"t wait to get in there, to get this thing started,"" Greg Madden said as a marching band warmed up inside the stadium.

Both teams brought cheerleading squads to Australia, and Hawaii had 30 members of its marching band for Saturday"s game.

The fans mostly supported Hawaii, the underdogs, and other than reports of beer running out in parts of the stadium, most of the fans appeared to enjoy what was likely their first taste of American football.

Source: http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/story/plenty-of-new-college-football-fans-for-1st-game-of-season-082716

Chicago Bears welcome Olympic medalists to Soldier Field ...

2006 MNF Comeback | Bears vs. Cardinals (Full Game) | NFL

Olympic Bronze medalist Corey Cogdell-Unrein, who is married to Chicago Bears defensive lineman Mitch Unrein, proudly displays her Rio medal at Solider Field.Jeff Dickerson/ESPN.com

Olympic medalists Kelsey Robinson, Kevin Cordes and Corey Cogdell-Unrein pose for photos prior to the Bears" preseason game on Saturday.Jeff Dickerson/ESPN.com

Source: http://www.espn.com/blog/chicago-bears/post/_/id/4703440/chicago-bears-welcome-olympic-medalists-to-soldier-field

"Southside With You" has us asking: Where is the love in black movies?

Southside with You Official Trailer #1 (2016) Parker Sawyers, Tika Sumpter Drama Movie HD

Karen Grigsby Bates sat down with NPR"s movie critic, Bob Mondello, to talk about Southside with You, a new independent film about Michelle and Barack Obama"s very first date, back in the summer of 1989.

The film takes place over the course of a single afternoon, and, as the title suggests, is set on the South Side of Chicago.

Famous subjects notwithstanding, Southside with You is your typical date movie, complete with meet-cute antics (Barack shows up late; Michelle refuses to admit she"s on an actual date.)

But, as Karen and Bob point out, there"s something amazing in the film"s simplicity and that"s because it"s pretty uncommon to see everyday black romance on the screen today.

The film is "not about other things, it"s just about the two of them getting to know each other," Bob says. "What"s remarkable about the film is that at any given moment, it"s not being remarkable. It"s being lifelike. And that is such a rarity in movies. You don"t see African-American characters behaving in a way that is just, sort of, normal."

Bob says the film industry has a bit of a checkered history when it comes to black-on-black love. Some of the earliest examples he"s found were musicals full, operatic productions, like Cabin in the Sky, Porgy and Bess, and Carmen Jones. He and Karen theorize that stylizing black love with music was a way of making it safe for white audiences because, as Karen ponders, "Who has s*x in a musical?" (OK, we know, we"ve seen Spring Awakening, too.)

In 1961, that began to change with the film adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry"s A Raisin in the Sun. The film starred Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee, and was, in many ways, a showcase of normal black love. Over the years, Poitier became the paragon for a black male romantic lead in the movies. Later on, it seemed that Denzel Washington might fill that space, with roles like Demetrius Williams in Mississippi Masala in 1991. But unlike Poitier, Washington didn"t keep playing the perfect guy in movies Training Day and American Gangster were hardly rom-coms.

The realm of black love on screen continued to grow into the "90s, with hits like Waiting to Exhale in 1995, Love Jones in "97, How Stella Got Her Groove Back in "98, and Love & Basketball in 2000.

But in 2016, it"s once again become rare to see two black characters fall in love on screen. The simple presence of that love story is what makes Southside with You special even more than the fact that we"re watching full-length fan fiction of a sitting president and First Lady.

You can listen to the rest of the discussion here, and subscribe to the Code Switch podcast at NPR"s podcast directory or on iTunes. Be sure to follow us on Twitter @NPRCodeSwitch we want to hear your favorite examples of black love on screen.

Source: http://www.scpr.org/news/2016/08/27/64034/southside-with-you-has-us-asking-where-is-the-love/

This #WomensEqualityDay, Remember What Your Vote Means

Secretary of the Air Force - Women"s Equality Day Message

August 26th marks Women"s Equality Day and the 96th anniversary of American women gaining the right to vote here in the United States. The struggle to fully exercise those legal rights continued for many more decades for African-American women. Thousands of black women participated in marches, wrote editorials and pamphlets, gave speeches all over the nation, held demonstrations, picketed the White House, went on hunger strikes, and spent time in jail for their activism before the Voting Rights Act was signed into law in 1965.

Our foremothers knew how important it was that they sit at the table and help shape the political, social, and economic life of our society, and they didn"t take the responsibility for granted. The issues they faced were too important for them to not take action. The same is true today. In spite of the progress made in the last 7 years, our nation is still grappling with many issues including racial and economic inequality, strained relations between the police and communities of color, and rising costs of higher education, just to name a few. Our federal discretionary budget still spends too much on nuclear weapons and war and not enough on the investments needed in our communities. Women leaders and women voters can make the difference.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stated: "Countries with more gender equality have better economic growth. Companies with more women leaders perform better. Peace agreements that include women are more durable. Parliaments with more women enact more legislation on key social issues such as health, education, anti-discrimination, and child support. The evidence is clear: equality for women means progress for all."

Empowered and engaged women make a difference in their communities. Though women and women"s rights have come a long way since 1920, we mustn"t forget the challenges we still face. Yes, Secretary Hillary Clinton became the first woman to earn a major party"s nomination for President this year, but women still do not earn equal pay for equal work, are not equally represented in all levels of elected office, lack access to quality and affordable healthcare, and are threatened by gender-based violence.

The leaders we choose in November to represent us in the General Assembly, Congress, and the White House will decide if we keep moving toward equality for women, if we make needed investments in our infrastructure, schools, transit, and hospitals rather than weapons of war, and how we keep our nation safe.

Our next President will set the tone for our nation"s diplomatic efforts, likely pick our next Supreme Court Justice, and hold the nuclear codes in their hands. Who do we trust with those responsibilities? Our next Congress will put together a budget that decides how our tax dollars are spent to address real issues like the Zika outbreak, natural disaster relief, educating the next generation, and terrorism prevention.

We voters have the power and the responsibility to decide. In the past two Presidential elections, African-American women have turned out to vote at a higher rate than any other demographic group. Here in Ohio, our status as a battleground state has helped reinforce the power that each vote has on an election"s final outcome, but we must remember that the impact of our vote lasts far beyond the 2nd Tuesday in November. The people that we choose to represent us will make decisions that will determine if all Americans have the opportunity to live our lives with dignity, in peace, and with an equal chance at prosperity. This Women"s Equality Day, let"s honor the women leaders who came before us by remembering what"s at stake and pledging to cast an educated, informed vote in each and every election.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charleta-b-tavares/this-womensequalityday-re_b_11705836.html

Philly shelters offer free, discounted adoptions for National Dog Day

Eating a can of wet dog food for National Dog Day

If you want to celebrate National Dog Day by getting a pup of your own, some Philadelphia shelters are offering adoption specials Friday.

The free or discounted adoptions are part of the shelters" efforts to find permanent homes for the animals.

In honor of the day, the Animal Care and Control Team of Philadelphia is waiving adoption fees on all dogs Friday. People can go to the shelter at 111 W. Hunting Park Ave. between 1 and 8 p.m.

The Pennsylvania SPCA is offering $50 off all dog adoptions, with some dogs available for only $1. Potential adopters should go to the shelter at 350 E. Erie Ave.between 1 and 8 p.m. The promotion is also in place at the PSPCA"s Fishtown and Danville shelters, the organization said.

The regular adoption application and process still apply at the shelter

Some other shelters are holding awareness events to mark National Dog Day.

Source: http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/real-time/Philly-shelters-offer-free-discounted-adoptions-for-National-Dog-Day.html

Cousin of NBA"s Dwyane Wade gunned down while pushing baby stroller in Chicago

Dwyane Wade’s Cousin Fatally Shot While Pushing Her 3 Week Old Baby In A Stroller

Chicago police say a woman pushing a baby in a stroller was fatally shot on the citys South Side.

Authorities say the 32-year-old victim was killed when two males walked up and fired shots at a third man about 3:30 p.m. Friday. Police say the woman was not the intended target.

She was identified in local media as Nykea Aldridge, a cousin of NBA star Dwyane Wade, who tweeted his reaction Saturday night:Aldridge, a cousin of NBA star Dwyane Wade, who tweeted his reaction Saturday night:

Police and the Cook County Medical Examiners Office say she suffered gunshot wounds to her head and an arm.

Family spokesman Pastor Edward Jones says Aldridge was a mother of four and was walking to register her children for school. He says the family recently moved to the neighborhood.

Police say one of the males who fired shots was being questioned Friday evening.

Police say the baby wasnt hurt, and a relative has taken custody of the child.

Source: http://www.10tv.com/article/cousin-nbas-dwayne-wade-gunned-down-while-pushing-baby-stroller-chicago